Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy PDF

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1 Aristotle’s Theory of Tragedy poems, Aristotle saw this as one of Homer’s Tragedy in the Poetics Tragedy is the greatest virtues; while Plato thought tragedy principal subject of Aristotle’s Poetics and its has a harmful effect on the soul in that it feeds most discussed topic. Apart from the gene...

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1 Aristotle’s Theory of Tragedy Tragedy in the Poetics Tragedy is the principal subject of Aristotle’s Poetics and its most discussed topic. Apart from the general introduction (chs. 1–5) and the concluding discussion of epic poetry (chs. 23–6), the main body of the treatise is dedicated to tragedy. But tragedy looms large also in those parts of the Poetics which formally treat other subjects. The very identification of poetry as representation, or mimesis, argued for in the Introduction (see esp. 1.1447b14–15 “as if [the poets] are not called poets by virtue of mimesis”), points to the author’s privileging of dramatic genres, the only ones that are fully mimetic in that they present all the characters as being impersonated (3.1448a19–24). An outline of the origins of tragedy and its development up to the point when it ceased to change “after it had acquired its proper nature” (4.1449a14–15; presumably, with SOPHOCLES) is also placed here. Epic poetry (Heath 2011a), even when it is in the focus of the discussion, is approached through the lens of tragedy (e.g., 23.1459b2–4, on the unity of the Homeric epics: “Therefore out of the Iliad or the Odyssey only one tragedy can be made, or at most two” or 24.1459b8–9: “epic poetry should have the same kinds as tragedy”). In the concluding section of our text, which is dedicated to comparison between the  two genres, tragedy is found superior (kreittōn) to epos (26.1462b12–15). Here and elsewhere in the Poetics, Aristotle uses Plato’s theory of poetry as a mimetic art to  build a hierarchy of preferences directly opposed to Plato’s (Else 1957: 97–100; Lucas 1972: 228, 235–6, 299; Janko 1987: x–xiv; Finkelberg 1998a: 10–11, 189–90). While Plato regarded mimesis as the art of producing phantoms of reality, for Aristotle it is an art that enables the representation of the universal, purified of the accidental aspects of empirical reality; while Plato faulted Homer for the considerable part played by impersonation in his

poems, Aristotle saw this as one of Homer’s greatest virtues; while Plato thought tragedy has a harmful effect on the soul in that it feeds the emotions that destroy its rational part, in Aristotle’s eyes the emotions aroused by tragedy have a purifying effect on the soul; and while Plato considered tragedy the least acceptable of all literary genres, for Aristotle it was the most acceptable (see also PLATO AND TRAGEDY). The discussion of tragedy proper (chs. 6–22) begins with a general definition: Now, tragedy is a representation (mimēsis) (a) of a serious and complete action possessed of a certain scale; (b) by means of language embellished with different kinds [of embellishment] in each of its sections; (c) of persons who perform actions rather than through telling a story; (d) which achieves, by means of pity and fear, the purification (katharsis) of such emotions. (6, 1449b24–8)

Aristotle identifies six aspects, or “parts,” of tragedy: PLOT (mythos), CHARACTER (ēthos), LANGUAGE (lexis), thought (dianoia), SPECTACLE (opsis), and MUSICAL composition (melopoiia). The most important aspect of tragedy, to which all the others are subordinated, is the plot. The theory of the tragic plot For all practical purposes, Aristotle’s theory of tragedy is a theory of the tragic plot. For Aristotle, the plot is the first principle (archē) of tragedy and, as it were, its soul (6.1450a37–8). Consistently identified as the arrangement of events (systasis, or synthesis, tōn pragmatōn: 6, 1450a4–5, 15 et passim), it should be a whole (holon), having a beginning, a middle, and an end (7.1450b 27–8) and “one,” that is, present a unity (8.1451a15–16); it is mandatory for it to be arranged in accordance with probability or necessity (kata to eikos ē to anankaion: 9.1451a37–9 et passim). These

The Encyclopedia of Greek Tragedy, First Edition. Edited by Hanna M. Roisman. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

2 principles are violated in the so-called episodic plots, “in which the acts (ta epeisodia), following one another, display neither probability nor necessity” (9.1451b34–5; cf. Metaph. 1090b19–20). This is the worst kind of plot. Plots may be simple or complex. The latter are characterized by RECOGNITION (anagnōrismos, anagnōrisis) and REVERSAL (peripeteia), both of which should arise from the arrangement of the plot itself and agree with probability or necessity (10.1452a18–20, 11.1452a38–1452b1; see also ARISTOTLE: ELEMENTS OF GREEK TRAGEDY). The third element of the plot is SUFFERING (pathos), understood as enactment of destruction or pain (11.1452b9–13). In virtue of recognition and reversal, the complex plots produce PITY or FEAR, both of them distinctive (idion) of tragic representation (13.1452b30–3). The plot which has a single focus and whose reversal is from good to bad fortune is the best one; the reversal should occur as a result of a major error (HAMARTIA) committed by a man who is like ourselves in that he is neither entirely blameless nor entirely mean: such plots produce pity and fear and result in the kind of pleasure (hēdonē) that is specific to tragedy (13.1453a7–17, 35–6). The genuine tragic pleasure is therefore the one that comes from pity and fear by way of representation (14.1453b10–13). Aristotle’s theory of the plot is holistic, in that it embraces both the form and the content of the tragic play, both its inner structure and the response of the AUDIENCE (cf. 6.1450a32–4: “Those [elements] that especially affect the soul, namely, the reversals and recognitions, are parts of the plot”). Its fundamental principles form an indissoluble chain in which the arrangement of events leads to the protagonist’s error; the error results in recognition and reversal; recognition and reversal arouse pity and fear; and pity and fear culminate in KATHARSIS (so in the general definition) or in the specific tragic pleasure (so in the rest of the text). All this is presented as a quasi-real event with no mediation of the authorial or narrative voice.

It follows from this that for Aristotle the objective of tragedy is in bringing the audience (or the reader) to a certain state, alternately designated as either katharsis or pleasure. Although the exact meaning of Aristotle’s katharsis has been debated for centuries, on any interpretation it would amount to a profound purifying effect on the soul. Pleasure as the objective of tragedy should not be taken lightly either. The thorough treatment of pleasure in book 10 of the Nicomachean Ethics is especially helpful in this respect (Finkelberg 1998a: 13–17). Every activity has its end (telos) in the kind of pleasure specific to it: the pleasure specific to a worthy activity is good and that specific to an unworthy one is bad (1174b31–4, 1175a19–21, 24–9). If, then, a work of poetry is ethically worthy (and in ch. 13 of the Poetics Aristotle supplies well-defined criteria for distinguishing between ethically worthy and unworthy plots), then the pleasure in which it culminates would lead, as with other virtuous activities, to the attainment of happiness (eudaimonia; cf. 1177a2–11). This would place the pleasure caused by tragedy among those pleasures that belong with the activities of “the perfect and blessed man”: such is first and foremost the activity of reason (1176a26–8, 1177b19–21). On this interpretation, the pleasure caused by the right kind of tragedy would be akin to the pleasure of spiritual contemplation experienced by the philosopher. What Aristotle leaves out The other aspects  of tragedy receive a much less thorough treatment. CHARACTERIZATION is considered secondary to the plot, and it too should agree with probability or necessity (6.1450a38; 15.1454a33–6). This is why sudden changes of character – as, for example, in EURIPIDES’ IPHIGENIA AT AULIS – should be avoided, and the same holds good of the dramatic device of DEUS EX MACHINA as introduced, for example, in EURIPIDES’ MEDEA (15.1454a31–3, 1454b1–2). To avoid inconsistencies at the time of performance, the poet should keep the scenic action before his eyes (17.1455a22–9); the CHORUS

3 should be treated as one of the ACTORS and part of the whole (18.1456a25–30), and so on. The concluding chapters of Aristotle’s discussion of tragedy (chs. 19–21) deal with language and thought, although not everything here seems to have originally belonged to the Poetics. The performative aspects of tragedy, namely, the spectacle and the musical composition, are deliberately skipped over: “The spectacle does indeed affect the soul, but it is the most unsophisticated (atechnotaton) and the least germane to the art of poetry, for the power of tragedy holds even without performance and actors” (6.1450b17–20). The experience of the reader or the listener of a tragic play is therefore acknowledged as just as effective a form of reception as that of the spectator. Aristotle’s other omissions are no less revealing. He ignores the entire genre of lyric poetry and hardly even mentions the choral odes of tragedy, obviously on account of their nonmimetic character (see L YRIC POETRY AND TRAGEDY). He never refers to religious aspects of tragedy nor to the role played in it by GODS, apparently because their workings add nothing to the overarching principles of probability and necessity. He ignores such generally acclaimed masterpieces as EURIPIDES’ TROJAN WOMEN and SOPHOCLES’ OEDIPUS AT COLONUS, both of them episodic, or AESCHYLUS’ AGAMEMNON and EURIPIDES’ BACCHAE, both dominated by the chorus. His exemplary tragedies are SOPHOCLES’ OEDIPUS TYRANNUS and EURIPIDES’ IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS, both fitting to perfection his requirements for the best plot (Else 1957: 446). Aristotle’s strategies of inclusion and exclusion show clearly enough that his discussion of tragedy has never been intended as a piece of literary criticism or a balanced overview of the extant corpus of ATTIC drama. The Poetics is a philosophical treatise purported to present a theory of mimetic art of which the genre of tragedy happens to be the most adequate representative. Partisans and critics For a number of reasons, Aristotle’s theory of tragedy exerted

a considerably greater influence on modern European than on Hellenistic and Roman tradition (Halliwell 1986: 287–90). From c. 1500, the Poetics became a seminal text which dominated western thought on art and literature in the subsequent three centuries; from c. 1800, its authority started being questioned, and it was alternately attacked or endorsed for another 200 years; today, it continues to be an integral part not only of literary theory but also of the theory of drama, cinema, and art in general (see, e.g., Jauss 1973/4; Dolezel 1988; 1998; Eco 1990). Still, the history of its reception is to a large  degree a history of misinterpretation (Halliwell 1987: 291–323). The most notorious case is that of the so-called “Aristotelian UNITIES” – of action, place, and time – which were regarded as normative in the neoclassical theory of drama. Yet, although only the unity of action is actually mentioned by  Aristotle, in the reaction against neoclassicism that started with the Enlightenment the three unities were habitually regarded as  representative of Aristotle’s theory. The still persistent habit of narrowing the focus of the Poetics by translating the Greek mimēsis as “imitation” has been equally misleading. As a rule, both the admirers and the detractors of the Poetics fail to approach it as a whole, thus distorting the thread of Aristotle’s argument and eventually missing its point. Bertolt Brecht’s theory of “non-Aristotelian theater” is a unique attempt at challenging the Poetics in its totality. Just as Aristotle in the Poetics, Brecht proceeded from the structure of the play to the reaction of the audience; as a result, his theory of drama is a mirror image of Aristotle’s (Finkelberg 2006). Brecht rejected the Aristotelian model of a lifelike illusion which lures the spectator into the state of a complete identification with the hero, resulting in feelings of fear and pity and, ultimately, an emotional katharsis: instead, he strove to prevent the spectators from experiencing emotions and to encourage them to think. This is why, as against the cause-effect continuity of Aristotelian plot, he adopted the episodic plot structure detested by Aristotle. This

4 is also why he replaced the audience’s identification with the characters, leading to what he saw as passive acceptance of the existing order of things, by the emotional estrangement from what was happening on the scene (compare his famous “I laugh when they weep, I weep when they laugh”). Brecht’s vision of “non-Aristotelian theater” has been highly influential, and in its questioning of such notions as artistic illusion, identification with the characters, or unity of the plot the contemporary theory owes much to Brecht’s insights and, through them, to Aristotle. See also GREEK TRAGEDY AND PHILOSOPHY; MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND GREEK TRAGEDY; PERFORMATIVE APPROACH TO GREEK TRAGEDY; POETICS OF GREEK TRAGEDY; POSTARISTOTELIAN CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE TRAGIC HERO References Dolezel, L. 1988. “Mimesis and Possible Worlds.” Poetics Today 9: 475–96. Dolezel, L. 1998. “Possible Worlds of Fiction and History.” New Literary History 29: 785–809. Eco, U. 1990. “Thoughts on Aristotle’s Poetics,” in C.-A. Mihalescu and W. Hamarneh (eds.), Fiction Updated: Theories of Fictionality, Narratology, and Poetics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press: 229–43.

Else, G.F. 1957. Aristotle’s Poetics: The Argument. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Finkelberg, M. 1998a. The Birth of Literary Fiction in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Finkelberg, M. 2006. “Aristotle and Episodic Tragedy.” G&R 53: 60–72. Halliwell, S. 1986. Aristotle’s Poetics. London: Duckworth. Heath, M. 2011a. “Aristotle and Homer,” in M.  Finkelberg (ed.), The Homer Encyclopedia. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell: 93–6. Janko, R. 1987. Aristotle, Poetics, with the Tractatus Coislinianus, reconstruction of Poetics II, and the fragments of the On Poets. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Jauss, H.R. 1973/4. “Levels of Identification of Hero and Audience.” New Literary History 5: 283–317. Lucas, D. 1972. Aristotle: Poetics. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Further Reading Andersen, Ø. and J. Haarberg (eds.). 2001. Making Sense of Aristotle: Essays in Poetics. London: Duckworth. Belfiore, E. 1992. Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Oksenberg Rorty, A. (ed.). 1992. Essays on Aristotle’s Poetics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. MARGALIT FINKELBERG...